


a witch's work

by bravest



Category: Supernatural
Genre: IDK HOW TO RATE THIS PROPERLY, M/M, also implied sort of pre-established?, but nothing explicit at all, implied sexual activity at the end?, it doesn't really matter in there though!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravest/pseuds/bravest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a witch's curse aimed at castiel has unexpected results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a witch's work

When a witch cursed Castiel, the spell didn’t work. A crackling electricity coursed through his vessel, bright flashes brightened the room, and the curse’s original purpose flickered briefly before dying out. When it was over, when the last crackles stopped, Cas was wide eyed, hair tousled, clothes rumpled.  
  
“Help,” he wheezed, before crumpling to the ground at Dean’s feet.

He slept for 24 hours. Dean didn’t leave his bed side, and they called on everyone they knew, witch specialists and curse specialists and they even considered asking some kind of scientist what electricity did to waves of celestial intent. In the end they didn’t because 1) that was crazy, and 2) neither of them could figure out what kind of scientist or doctor or specialist to ask.

Cas slept on. In Dean’s bed, in Dean’s room, and it was the longest 24 hours of Dean’s life. Neither him nor Sam could know for sure that he’d ever wake up, and not knowing was the hard part.

When Castiel woke up at last it was with one loud, throat wrenching gasp, followed by a loud, dry cough.  
  
“Cas? Cas!” Dean was instantly at his side, helping him as he struggled to sit up. His hand came to rest at Castiel’s back, the other hovering over his chest, ready to catch him were he to fall forward. “It’s alright, I got you,” he said, before looking behind him and calling out of the open door. “Sam! He’s up! Sammy!”  
  
Castiel was panting, nearly wheezing, and shaky hands grabbed at Dean for purchase. Dean’s free hand caught one of them, and he nearly jerked back when Castiel tensed all over and let out a wail, as if he was in pain. He would have, had Cas not been grasping his hand so tightly. 

“SAM! Get in here!” He yelled over his shoulder again, more urgently this time, because that sound had iced his blood. It was a sound he’d never heard from Cas, one he didn’t think was possible for the angel to make, wrenched and torn. Something was wrong, very wrong, and his heart sped up, mind racing at the possibilities. “Hey, buddy, it’s okay, just breathe, alright?”

“Dean,” he hissed under his breath, and his eyes found Dean’s for a moment before rolling back into their sockets. He went limp, falling over into Dean’s arms, hand still clutching Dean’s own.  
  
Dean cursed, holding a passed out Castiel in his arms and wondering what the hell was happening.

When Castiel woke up again a few hours later, he seemed better. It was a slower waking, blinking eyes and soft shuffling under the sheets. Dean had been the one to tuck him in, even though Sam had rolled his eyes and said he was pretty sure angels didn’t get cold. Still, there had been something in the way Castiel was curled up on the bed that had worried Dean, so he’d unceremoniously covered him with a blanket.  
  
“Hey, buddy, take it easy,” Dean said as he leaned over from his chair, his hand reaching out, hovering, then dropping back to his leg. Cas’ reaction to his touch earlier was still fresh in his memory, and he didn’t want a repeat of that, didn’t want to hurt him if that’s what it did. They still had not idea what was wrong with him, after all.  
  
Castiel’s head turned, slowly, towards Dean’s voice.

He gave him such a look of puzzlement that Dean’s guts twisted unpleasantly, an array of the next words Castiel might speak (Who are you? Who am I? Do I know you? Get away from me! Don’t touch me!) rushing through him at once.

“Hello, Dean,” came instead, and Dean had to duck his head down to try and hide the wide grin splitting his face.

 

* * *

 

“Hello, Dean,” he spoke, trying not to express his current discomfort, the hunger nagging at his stomach, the scratchy feel of the blanket under his hands, the too-warm of his feet, over heated under the blanket and in their socks. 

He couldn’t clearly remember what had happened, but he could deduce enough from these sensations to know what the result had been.

He was human. 

He could feel air against his face, he could feel the shape of the mattress under him, the heat of the blanket, an itch at his side, the light too bright for his unaccustomed eyes, and the hunger, the hunger, the hunger.

“Do we have any burgers?” He croaked out first and foremost, sustenance being his priority.

“Sure,” Dean nodded despite the crease in his brow, eyeing Castiel with apprehension. “SAM!” He called loudly, his eyes not leaving Castiel’s own. “Bring me one of the burgers from earlier, there’s one left on the grill!”

There was no response but the sound of a chair being pushed back, and footsteps heading toward the kitchen. Castiel felt diminished, unable to trace them all the way, unable to hear Sam’s breathing and beating heart from here. How was he supposed to make sure the Winchesters were safe all the time?

“Thank you,” he said, before pulling himself to a sitting position. He winced, the sensation of cloth rubbing across his skin strange and new. Not that he didn’t feel usually, it was just  _different_. In a vessel he felt touch, sensations, burns and cuts, but in a distant way, like an echo. Now it was all at the forefront of his mind, how his pants were bunched up uncomfortably at the crotch, how his tie was pulled sideways and tugging at his neck a little too much. He pulled at it, frowning, before he glanced back at Dean, who was watching him with concern.

“You okay?” He asked, reaching over to help him loosen the tie, careful not to allow skin on skin contact yet. Castiel’s hands dropped out of the way and he lifted his chin to give him room, and this was such a part of their routine now that it came naturally, like steps to a dance they’d practiced their whole lives.

“Aside from being entirely human, yes, I would say I’m okay,” Castiel answered, observing the way Dean’s fingers froze on the knot of his tie, and his eyes slowly rose to meet his own.

“Human? Like, human-human, no angel mojo stuff?”

“No, Dean, I mean fake human,” Castiel said, a step away from an eyeroll. But Dean didn’t pay attention, frowning and confused as he ran a hand down the lower half of his face.

“The witch’s spell must’ve bounced off of your angel crap or something, broke it down. You didn’t get cursed but you lost your mojo,” he said, mostly to himself as Cas was no longer listening, because Sam walked in with a tasty looking burger that made his mouth literally water.

So humans weren’t kidding.

“Give that to me,” he demanded, reaching both hands for the plate as Sam raised an eyebrow at him but complied.

“Okay, dude. It’s not going anywhere.”

Dean was talking to Sam, perhaps theorizing on what had happened, but Cas could do nothing but shove the food down his throat, basking in the tastes exploding across his tongue. It was ten times tastier this way, ten times juicier and it was like eating a burger in high definition.

It kept his mind off of the rest of him, of his skin sensitive to every brush of cloth and every brush of air. He thought of earlier, of the overwhelming sensation of Dean’s hand gripping his own, and decided that no, no, just eating this burger for now was fine, let’s not think about the sparks he’d felt down his spine at the physical contact. He’d been surprised, is all. After growing more accustomed to touch in it’s vague distant way, feeling it full on had been startling, to say the last. It made sense, considering just his shirt against his chest was making it hard to focus, but it was still not a comfortable line of thought. 

“What do you think, Cas?”

Sam and Dean were looking at him expectantly, as if he was meant to have been paying attention while eating this burger, as if he even  _could_.  
  
“Where is this from?” He said with his mouth full, lifting up the burger. Sam did one of his famous little faces, and Dean tilted his head with a self-satisfied grin. It was funny, watching them side by side. They sometimes mirrored each other despite their differences, but most times they were on different sides of a same story.  
  
“Made it, Chef Winchester special,” Dean said as Castiel shoved the last bite into his mouth, humming appreciatively. Dean’s eyes stayed on him, both love struck and proud of himself, until Sam snapped him back.  
  
“Dean! We’ve still got a problem here,” he said, motioning to Cas. “We need him, you know, grace and all.”

Castiel frowned, looking up at Sam from the bed, wondering what he meant by that. It wasn’t all he was good for, was it? He was more to the Winchesters, he knew that, but the doubt was still there. He’d gotten used to it, and now it was easy to recognize.

“Right,” Dean said, clearing his throat, looking like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Maybe it was the staring, but he had no reason to be embarrassed now that, well. Nothing was really  _established_  between them, but they had briefly discussed the fact that there was something there, in the most awkward conversation he’d ever had with Dean. Cas watched him stand up, wiping his palm on his leg as he did so, taking the plate from his lap. “Sam was just telling me he found something, but it’s got it’s downsides.”

“Meaning?”  
  
Sam and Dean shared a look like Castiel would have known had he just been listening, but the angel knew that Dean could understand how distracting really good food could be. He raised an eyebrow at him, a silent  _are really the one to judge me?_ Dean looked away from him quickly, pretending to be focused on Sam as he spoke.

“Meaning it will either fix you, or reinforce the broken spell,” Sam said. “We’re not too sure what it means in your case, considering,” he shrugged and turned to Dean, who looked at Cas.

“Up to you buddy, if you feel up to finding out what reinforced humanity means. Maybe you’ll get some crazy superhuman powers. You could be the next Peter Parker, just less spidery,” he finished with another smug look, that look he got when he made a joke that he thought was funny but that no one else laughed at. 

They both ignored it, and he pursed his lips and walked off to take the plate into the kitchen sink.

“I’ll do it,” Castiel told Sam, who nodded.

“Alright, I’ll go get the stuff ready, you get some rest.”

Castiel was fine with that, his overloaded senses tired and worn, frazzled, and he fell back into the pillow only to doze off instantly.

 

* * *

 

It turned out the counter spell, or whatever it was Sam had found in the hefty, dusty tome he kept consulting, was a rather delicate process. It followed simple rules but was largely based on perfect balance, and a slight mistake could turn everything around.

Castiel didn’t back down, however, trusting Sam entirely. With Dean at his side, asking if he could help, what he could do to get this done more quickly, he was in perfectly good hands. 

None of them could have predicted that Sam would need to sneeze in the middle of the incantation. None of them could have predicted that, even when turning his head and sneezing into the fold of his elbow, Sam would blow air into the bowl and send some of the powdered ingredients into a dust cloud above it.

Well shit.

Sam did this best to make up for it, continuing the process, shooting apologetic glances at Dean’s wide eyed glares and thinned lips. Cas was feeling better, the initial surprise at waking up with all the wrong senses in the forefront of his mind dulled. 

When Sam finished, Castiel’s eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out in Dean’s arms (who had stood nearby prepared for that very occurence) with a weak and wavering ‘ohhhh’.

He woke up back in Dean’s bed an hour later, this time jerking awake with wide eyes and frozen into place. He could move but he didn’t want to, not when every inch of his skin was already overwhelmed as it was. He thought he’d been overwhelmed before but oh, he’d been wrong, so wrong.

Because now he could feel everything, every bit of the scratchy blanket, every length of thread of his shirt’s buttons pressing into his chest, could feel the elastic of his underwear digging into his hip bone, the tickle of his collar at the underside of his jaw and it was all happening at once and he jerked, whimpering.

He didn’t dare move. Every intake of breath was causing his clothes to shift on him, his nerves raw and exposed. Not in the third degree burn kind of way. Just open, registering every minute shift against his skin. He managed to glance sideways, eyes moving slowly in their sockets to his right, where Dean’s chair had been when he’d found himself here last.

And there it still was, a dozing hunter with his head thrown back slouched in it.

“Dean,” he said once, but his voice was barely above a whisper. Staying as he was, head firmly on the pillow, one hand with curled fingers near his face, the other folded over his chest, he tried again, louder this time.

“Dean, wake up.”

That did it, and Dean snapped awake with a snort, his eyes doing a quick scan around the room for danger before he moved. As frazzled as he was Castiel still had a thought for Dean’s eternal readiness to put up a fight, to be defensive, to attack. He’d been trained for it and even in sleep, he rarely ever rested, always watchful and prepared.

“Cas! Did it work, are you fixed?” He asked with a sleep-heavy voice, a hand rubbing at his eye and dragging down his cheek.

“I can feel everything,” he said, and Dean frowned at him, sitting up straight and leaning his elbows on his knees.

“What? What do you mean? What’s wrong?” 

“I can feel every wrinkle of my clothes on me,” he said before finally turning his head fully toward Dean, holding his breath as he did so. Okay, so that wasn’t so bad. Maybe he could get used to it. Maybe it was fading, maybe it was just a brief flare of the curse left over before fading to nothing.

He moved a leg to test the theory and was instantly proven wrong. He grit his teeth, steeled himself back into focus before speaking again.

“It’s like I’m — “

“Hypersensitive,” Dean finished for him, before leaning back on the chair again, hands covering his face as he threw his head back. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I can assure you I’m not kidding,” Castiel replied as he shifted some more, testing. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant, just overwhelming to the highest degree. After feeling everything like a vague echo, after feeling the ripples in the water, he was finally the surface right under the rock being throw in, and it was a lot to take in at once. He began to sit himself up, prepared for his sense to be overwhelmed, but not liking his position lying on the bed like that.

“Okay, okay. So the sneezing thing fucked it up. We just gotta try it again,” Dean said as his hands fell from his face. Castiel glanced at him like that was obvious and unnecessary, and saw Dean scramble to help him sit up. He almost hissed at him not to, but the other man’s hands were on him before he’d even opened his mouth.

“Oh,” Castiel breathed as he stilled completely under Dean’s touch. It was nothing, really, just a hand on the back of his shoulder, the other at his wrist. But he could practically feel his  _fingerprints_ , his pulse was beating hard against Dean’s fingers under his wrist, and the warmth of his hand at his shoulder was a slow burning fire searing at his skin without the unbearable pain. He was unaware of how erotic that had sounded, a breathy, airless moan.

Dean let go too soon, jerking his hands back to himself, palms up.

“Woah, okay. That was, uh,” he said, face twisted in one of his over exagerated expressions. “Yeah. Okay. You okay, or, uh.”

Castiel didn’t understand Dean’s reaction, not when he was the one feeling everything with heightened senses, when he was the one that had felt warm living skin against his own sending sparks along his nerves to the top of his head and the tip of his toes.

“I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth, fingers curling into the sheets pooling at his lap.

“This will just require some…getting used to,” he spoke carefully, hyper aware of how much a body moved with every small shift of muscle under skin. He had never noticed before, and now could do nothing else.

Dean looked at him doubtfully, before nodding, jaw set. 

“You won’t have to get used to it. I’ll get sam working on a new batch, we’ll fix you right up,” he said, pointing a finger at Cas. “You’ll be good as new, angel mojo and all.”

Castiel nodded, leaning back against the bedframe. He let out a strangled sound, like a squeak at the contact. His skin wasn’t bare, far from it, but he still felt the temperature of the surface against himself.

“That’s cold,” he breathed out in a huff.

“Is it really that bad?” Dean asked, with a spark of curiosity in his eyes that didn’t bode well.  _don’t even think about it, dean winchester,_  he sent at him with his eyes, narrowed into a sharp glare.

“It’s pretty bad Dean,” he said, voice lowered. Warning implied, unspoken but present in the tone of his voice.

Dean raised an eyebrow, tried to stifle his grin and failed.

“What if I did this?” His hand came to hover over Castiel’s. He brushed his fingers along the back of his hand, trailing them slowly up to his wrist, where they stopped. Castiel could do nothing but tense up, grit his teeth as goosebumps errupted all over his arm.

“Nice,” Dean said with a laugh, his eyes glinting again as his fingers began moving again, this time up his arm.

And Castiel didn’t stop him, because the shivers down his spine were of delight, not of pain. Because every touch Dean had previously gifted him already had an effect on him, and they now overrode every other thought in his mind. Those fingers were fluttering along his skin, trailing up toward his elbow, and he let out a slow, barely controlled exhale.

“Dean.”

“Cas,” Dean said, a tiny smile on his lips as he leaned in. He was close now, close enough that Castiel could feel his breath on his face, and he had to grit his teeth again. The air between them was always crackling but now, right now, it was downright lightning and thunder. His eyes locked with Dean’s and there was a brief moment where they regarded each other, one determined but crumbling, the other amused and eager. 

“Don’t,” Cas began, but was interrupted by a sound from the back of his throat as Dean climbed into the bed, on him, straddling him. This wasn’t exactly new, but Dean had a habit of starting things and scaring off before they got anywhere. Castiel didn’t want that, not now, not with Dean in his lap and his fingers trailing along his skin, entire body reacting to the touches.

Hands found their way under his shirt, skin on skin, and lips brushed along his jaw line. Warm air was breathed against his neck and Castiel’s breathing hitched as his eyes fluttered closed, head tilting away so Dean could have more room. His heart had begun to race under his chest, and his hand came to rest at Dean’s chest, over his own heart.

“Don’t stop,” he panted, the desire he felt coiling at the pit of his stomach intensified by the curse. More than the echo he usually felt, it was real, it was his own, enhanced maybe but his, something he felt tug at him for Dean, and only Dean.

“Okay,” Dean answered, blowing softly against Castiel’s neck, causing him to stiffen and shudder, his eyes fluttering closed again.

“Dean,” he said again, his hand curling into his shirt, fisting around the cloth. “Please.” There were lips being brushed against his neck, his jaw, trailing, air blown into soft laughs, and most of all hands running up his chest and down his sides and he could feel it all as sharp as a knife into the ribs. It was overwhelming when his nerves felt so attuned to everything, and even more so with the state of his feelings for Dean, with his hammering heart asking for more of him, when he’d never loved anything as much as he loved Dean Winchester.

“Don’t worry, Cas,” Dean murmured at the cusp of his ear, his fingers trailing lazily down to Cas’ belt. They hooked there and tugged, once, twice. “I’ll take care of you.”  _trust me,_  the light press of his lip where ear met jaw said.

And Castiel did.

His heart fluttered and beat against his ribcage and the sound he let out this time was definitely a moan, and the lips against his ear were definitely smiling, and yeah, it was time to let these newly enhanced senses to lead him.

They seemed to want to lead him nowhere but into Dean’s arms, after all, and he was perfectly okay with that.

A while later, after Castiel had discovered new things Dean could do with his mouth, and after showing Dean he knew plenty about these things too (and was good at them, from his sounds and the way he’d clung to him from underneath), they were sprawled on Dean’s messy bed, a tangle of arms and legs. Spent and tired, Dean could barely keep his eyes open, and how hard he tried was more than endearing, it was adorable. Cas shushed him to sleep, running a hand through his hair.

“T’least wasn’t all for nothing,” Dean mumbled into the pillow, finally letting his eyes close. Castiel should have been the one dozing off, after making such full use of his hypersensitivity, but his mind was still reeling with thoughts of Dean, and his heart was clenching with how badly he wanted to be by his side every minute of every day.

Besides, there was no way he could sleep with Dean’s arm over him like that, skin on skin, and he was, as always, perfectly content to watch him sleep.


End file.
